All references cited in this specification, and their references, are incorporated by reference herein where appropriate for teachings of additional or alternative details, features, and/or technical background.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the preservation of user data, such as (without limitation) web identity, personal information, and opt-out choice, by the use of a plurality of storage locations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Internet use is becoming more predominate every day. As the number of users, and web servers providing them information increases, the desire to directly market, track and monitor these users likewise rises. To accomplish this targeting, web-involved companies survey activities such as a web user's preferences, and web page visits—behavior with respect to the web. Tracking user behavior can have clear benefits for the internet savvy company. One such benefit is accurate targeting of their products to consumers, resulting in more efficient use of advertising dollars.
Historically tracking web users was accomplished via HTTP cookies. Cookies are a widely used Internet browser technology that allow for the storage of user attribute data, such as a zip code, age, or gender, within the browser itself. Such information can be useful at a later time during the reloading of a web page to provide a more personalized page to the consumer, such as showing their local content or assisting with preloading a form.
To protect the user to some degree, browsers have implemented some safeguards into the use of HTTP cookies. Ensuring privacy and security of the data being stored, browsers may only allow a server to set and read cookies within the same domain as the server. However, references to other sites may be embedded in a page served by a given site that also allows those other sites to set cookies, in the so-called third party context. Such third party cookies are used extensively in the online advertising and analytics industries to identify behavior associated with a pseudonymous user identification code, allowing these companies to associate multiple behaviors across a myriad of sites with a single pseudonymous identity.
It has also become common practice for a site that engages in behavioral tracking to offer consumers the opportunity to not participate, or “opt-out” of the tracking. Since a cookie is the built-in browser mechanism for the storage of consumer data within the browser itself, companies have chosen to store the opt-out information of a consumer within a cookie as well.
Recent years have seen development of “privacy management” tools that allow the user to periodically clear specific cookies, based upon the tool's recommendations. Unfortunately, these tools often are indiscriminate when choosing which cookies to delete and which to preserve. Consequently, the information regarding which users chose to opt-out of a particular site's services is lost when such a tool, installed by the user, clears these consumer opt-out choice cookies. Once the cookie containing the opt-out information is cleared, no record of the consumer's opt-out choice can be preserved. This can lead to the consumer's behavior, once again being tracked as it was prior to the opt-out choice being made.
Further, these tools are often bundled together with other tools and presented as a security package or privacy toolkit. Consumers may be unaware these tools are clearing their cookie information or otherwise modifying their values. The user might, however, wish to maintain their opt-out choice values. There is need, therefore, for an improved method for storing user attribute data in other than cookies.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0235155 describes a method and apparatus for identifying and storing information regarding individual users on a network without using cookies. The apparatus makes use of a read/write temporary file which is cached in the Internet cache of the user's computer, yet is not recognized by the user's browser as a cookie. An identification code may be made available in a user's computer, either as a file stored in the browser cache or in hardware in the user's computer. Such publication does not suggest the use of storing such opt-out cookies in such cache, nor does it suggest, as presently disclosed, the storage of data on multiple storage sites to allow for redundancy checks.